One can either make this into a Soviet Union wins Cold War or a US becomes communist one etc. but what would've happened had Marxism-Leninism, not liberal democracy, be the dominant ideology? Much as how liberal democracy still has opponents to it (religious traditionalists, nationalist authoritarians, leftists etc.) how would Marxism-Leninism's holdout opponents operate and look like? Furthermore how would the global economic situation, the technological situation etc. look like here?
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Marxist-Leninist End of History: How would that look like?
- Thread starter lerk
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OHC
deep green blue collar rainbow
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The obvious (and uninteresting) answer here is that it all depends on how this M-L victory comes about. But it could still be fun to speculate on this idea in more general terms.
I'd say the world-system's dissidents here would tend more towards either traditionalist conservatives or liberal freethinkers. The Taliban or the hippies. Communism being as triumphant as 1990s capitalism would leave little space for business tycoons and bankers to amass the kind of power that would let them challenge it - basically, if there are only a few isolated market economies, there's no Davos class.
I'd say the world-system's dissidents here would tend more towards either traditionalist conservatives or liberal freethinkers. The Taliban or the hippies. Communism being as triumphant as 1990s capitalism would leave little space for business tycoons and bankers to amass the kind of power that would let them challenge it - basically, if there are only a few isolated market economies, there's no Davos class.
Maybe not so much "liberals" but I can imagine libertarian socialists playing a role.The obvious (and uninteresting) answer here is that it all depends on how this M-L victory comes about. But it could still be fun to speculate on this idea in more general terms.
I'd say the world-system's dissidents here would tend more towards either traditionalist conservatives or liberal freethinkers. The Taliban or the hippies. Communism being as triumphant as 1990s capitalism would leave little space for business tycoons and bankers to amass the kind of power that would let them challenge it - basically, if there are only a few isolated market economies, there's no Davos class.
napoleon IV
Sheer Animal Cunning of the Groundhog
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This also depends on how the M-L victory comes about, but in a world where the Sino-Soviet split happened another group that could challenge the world system is anti-revisionists like Maoists and Hoxhaists. Given that Maoists could easily maintain control of China in a world where capitalism fails it's not hard to imagine that the most relevant divide in such a world isn't Marxism-Leninism vs. anticommunists, but between different interpretations of what counts as real Marxism-Leninism.The obvious (and uninteresting) answer here is that it all depends on how this M-L victory comes about. But it could still be fun to speculate on this idea in more general terms.
I'd say the world-system's dissidents here would tend more towards either traditionalist conservatives or liberal freethinkers. The Taliban or the hippies. Communism being as triumphant as 1990s capitalism would leave little space for business tycoons and bankers to amass the kind of power that would let them challenge it - basically, if there are only a few isolated market economies, there's no Davos class.
I suppose in a sense this is OTL but reversed - the main three powers (America, Russia, and China) are all neoliberal states.This also depends on how the M-L victory comes about, but in a world where the Sino-Soviet split happened another group that could challenge the world system is anti-revisionists like Maoists and Hoxhaists. Given that Maoists could easily maintain control of China in a world where capitalism fails it's not hard to imagine that the most relevant divide in such a world isn't Marxism-Leninism vs. anticommunists, but between different interpretations of what counts as real Marxism-Leninism.
There'd also be countries that didn't substantively change, retaining much of their current political system, with a mild shift in economics to align vaguely with the M-L world economic order. I'm thinking Scandinavia, but at the other end of the scale one party and de facto one party states in Africa like Zimbabwe, Angola, or RO CongoOne can either make this into a Soviet Union wins Cold War or a US becomes communist one etc. but what would've happened had Marxism-Leninism, not liberal democracy, be the dominant ideology? Much as how liberal democracy still has opponents to it (religious traditionalists, nationalist authoritarians, leftists etc.) how would Marxism-Leninism's holdout opponents operate and look like? Furthermore how would the global economic situation, the technological situation etc. look like here?
Me and some of the other uses on the forum brainstormed about this a few weeks ago, and came to a few conclusions:One can either make this into a Soviet Union wins Cold War or a US becomes communist one etc. but what would've happened had Marxism-Leninism, not liberal democracy, be the dominant ideology? Much as how liberal democracy still has opponents to it (religious traditionalists, nationalist authoritarians, leftists etc.) how would Marxism-Leninism's holdout opponents operate and look like? Furthermore how would the global economic situation, the technological situation etc. look like here?
- The US needs to be significantly weakened, but not by a Wallace-like fifth columnist, but by capitalism itself. The Dems and GOP outdoing each other with being horrible at leading the country would work better than say a Dixiecrat dictatorship.
- The USSR needs some strong allies. Having Italy and France be Communist Party-led in the second half of the 40s isn’t very hard, and with a few Anglo fuck-ups you can have the entire European mainland sans Iberia and maybe Flanders and the Netherlands be Soviet-aligned or at least Finlandized.
- Have the USSR build better rapport with Third World countries. I know that the Americans and British intelligence offices liked to put their finger in every pie they saw, but having countries like India, Iran, Ethiopia, etc. be more closely aligned with the USSR could help a ton.
- Earlier social strive in the USA. Having the 60s happen in the 50s instead (if that makes sense) would allow the CPUSA to play a bigger role in the adjacent American Left and possibly even take the leadership position that is needed to realize a ML America.
- Bretton Woods survives longer, but is also far less beneficial to the US. Doing away with financial regulations earlier than OTL, and having a smaller portion of the world trade with the USA would lead to an even more uneven balance between the US and its close trading partners and nobody in the capitalist world would benefit from it (aside from some capitalists).
- Have French, Italian and Russian media penetrate the Anglo world. Italians made great movies at the time, and though the conditions are radically different, American and British interaction with them could still help in winning the propaganda wars.
As for Anti-ML holdouts you can have a lot of different things from libertarian socialism to anti-revisionism and anarchism, but in a world where Marxist-Leninism is considered the ‘best ideology’ like liberal democracy is OTL, you need all other ideologies combatting it to look less free and equal, so you either need to discredit a more libertarian interpretation of socialism to such an extent that it invokes a Pavlovian response by the masses (I frankly don’t know how) or just have anti-modernism like OTL (Islamism and stuff), and the push to combat world leaders that are only acting like they’re communist, but aren’t in reality (Erdogan and the like).
I could imagine America taking a bit too much from the Russians when going communist in the 90s, and as a result missing some of the more liberal (not in the economic sense) characteristics that the likes of Italy and France would have, and both more progressive Russian and American people pointing at them as the way their countries should look like (just like how many Americans think Scandinavia is perfect while ignoring the huge issues those countries have).
Norway, Sweden, and Denmarks all have monarchies, so they’d have to do more than a mild shift in economics to fit into this world. People also really underestimate the huge differences between social democracy (which in essence is just very distrubutionist capitalism, while also being very top-down) while Marxist-Leninism does not allow for any private theory, and is (in theory at least) very bottom-up.There'd also be countries that didn't substantively change, retaining much of their current political system, with a mild shift in economics to align vaguely with the M-L world economic order. I'm thinking Scandinavia, but at the other end of the scale one party and de facto one party states in Africa like Zimbabwe, Angola, or RO Congo
One of the bigger issues of a ML End of History could also stem from the issue of the bureaucratic class slowly forming a new bourgeoisie, partially as a result of a less political population that the USSR-system breeds. I’d imagine that over time stuff like anarchism, non-Leninist left-communism, and libertarian socialism would start to challenge Marxist-Leninism, though it would be from within rather than a new Cold War (so just like OTL’s recent rise of socialism).
Can Russia and China be categorised as neoliberal states in the same way that the U.S.A., Britain and France can?Russia, and China
They both (so far) participate in the same global economic system so yeah. This can change though with the passage of the Ukraine War.Can Russia and China be categorised as neoliberal states in the same way that the U.S.A., Britain and France can?